Michelle Money Talks About Adoption

The Bachelor's Michelle Money Talks About Putting A Child Up For Adoption

Throughout her time on The Bachelorand Bachelor in Paradise, one thing we've admired about Michelle Money is her candor. Now, she's using the same openness that has made us laugh at past season villains to talk about a heavy subject: adoption. In a recent Peopleinterview, she spoke about putting her son up for adoption when she was 15.

Though she knew it was the right decision, she said, it was heart-wrenching. "It goes against everything that your heart and body and soul believe as a woman."

Her son is now 19, and she'd love to reconnect with him, but she wants to leave it up to him whether or not he gets in touch.

"After we placed him up for adoption, we were able to get letters and pictures for the first few years of his life, but that's it," she remembers. "I really don't want to initiate any contact. It's one of those things you have to be so fragile with. When he's ready, if he's ready, if they're ready to tell him and he wants to reach out to me, then I would be so excited. I don't want to put him in a position where he has to make that decision if he's not ready to make it."

She has held out hope, though, that he'll one day meet her 11-year-old daughter Brielle, who has always wanted a big brother. "Gosh, that would be pretty magical if that ended up happening for her," she thinks.

Money also talked about overcoming the shame associated with teenage pregnancy. "I just was able to finally get to this place where I had to let all that go and just speak my truth and know that this is my life," she said. "And it's a beautiful life."